The present invention relates to an ice making compartment in an ice maker making use of a falling water circulating system.
An ice making compartment 1 in an ice maker using the conventional system is illustrated in FIG. 1. The compartment 1 is made of a very thermally conductive metal. The compartment 1 comprises an ice making flat plate 2 forming the rear portion of the compartment, and a plurality of longitudinal partition plates (not shown) and transversal partition plates 3 fixed on said ice making plate 2 and defining cells 6 in cooperation with the plate 2. A cooling pipe 4 is fixed to the rear surface of the ice making plate 2 to cool the compartment 1. The holes of a spraying pipe 5 above the compartment 1 are disposed to spray the water for ice making. As shown in FIG. 1, the transversal partition plates 3 are inclined downward so that during the defrosting cycle the manufactured ice cubes from compartment 1 will fall naturally.
However, in the above conventional compartment, as shown in FIG. 2, each connecting part 7a joining together the ice cubes formed within the cells becomes thick as the ice grows during the ice making cycle. Therefore, there occurs a case in which adjoining ice cubes are not fully separated when the ice 7 falls into an ice storage hopper during the defrosting cycle. In this case, there is a disadvantage in that a user must separate the adjoining ice cubes, which is a troublesome operation. In particular, when the quantity of the ice stored within the hopper increases, the above disadvantage becomes severe since the falling distance decreases thereby reducing the impact of the ice. Furthermore, the capacity of the ice storage hopper cannot be effectively utilized when the adjoining ice cubes are not separated.